152

LPR OF OOBOHEW,

poms?

1846. to have used the friends’ privilege of dealing very faitbi’y
Zr. 41. with him, Cobden had speedily become conscious of 1
error. One of those who remonstrated with him was his old
friend, George Combe, to whom he replied as follows i
“It was wrong to exalt in Peel’s fall, and yet the goer?
of my indiscretion was calculated to throw me off my guard
and give my feelings for a moment the mastery of my judg
ment. I was speaking in the face of nearly the entire adult
male population of Stockport, whose terrible suffering? i
1841, when Peel took the government from the Whigs ¥
maintain the very system which was starving them we
fresh in my memory. The mews of the retirement of we
Peel Ministry reached Stockport a couple of hours befor?
the meeting took place. When it was announced; Be
whole audience sprang up, and gave three times thre?
cheers. I was quite taken aback, and out came thot
virnlent attack upon Peel, for which I have been gently
rapped on the knuckles by Miss Martineau, yourself and
many other esteemed correspondents. It was an np”
meditated ebullition. Tell your good brother I will keel
& more watchful guard over the old serpent that is with”
me for the future. You must not judge me by what I #6
at these tumultuous public meetings.”*
The rest of this letter, describing his feelings about publ
life, has been given in a preceding chapter (pp. 207-8): ’
a second letter, replying we may suppose to a request °
Combe’s that he might be allowed to show the first to gon
of their common friends, Cobden referred fiercely enough
he had previously done in public, to the extremely pinf?
incident of 1843: it has been already described if
place

¢ To G. Jombs. Manchester, Deo. 20, 1845. Bee Miss Marsinesn¥ a
iography, il. 368303.
7 Above, chap. xii,, pp.